LIVING CONDITIONS
LIVING CONDITIONS
LIVING
CONDITIONS
Japanese language was compulsory in Korea and Taiwan, and people in these countries were heavily indoctrinated in loyalty to the Emperor and respect for Japan as their suzerain state. Physical similarity between Japanese and Koreans or Taiwanese also may have been a factor favoring procurement of women there.
Despite such official justifications for the program, it should not be forgotten that the estimated 80,000–100,000 women involved in the comfort women system were themselves victims of systematic, institutional rape and sexual slavery.
One cannot sufficiently explain the establishment and operation of the comfort women system, in particular the sexual exploitation of Korean women in that system, by viewing it from the perspective of military history alone. It becomes comprehensible only when we examine how the trafficking of young women came to be widely practiced in Korea well before the military brothel system was established. This trafficking was a by-product of Japan’s various policies of colonizing the Korean peninsula.
To reiterate from the previous section, that these girls have to service up to 40 men daily. There is no doubt that such extreme sexual abuse caused considerable physical pain and health problems to many of the “comfort women.”
Managers of comfort stations were usually instructed to make sure that comfort women would not have intercourse during their menstrual periods. However, it seems that many women were forced to serve men during their periods.
Soldiers were strictly instructed to use condoms provided by the supply department to each soldier through his unit or to the comfort station directly. The Brand of condom supplied by the Japanese military was called “Assault No. 1.” Despite the official regulation that anyone who refused to use condoms would be banned from associating with comfort women, many men forced comfort women to serve them without condoms. In some remote areas the lack supply of comdoms is not surprising therefore many women suffered from VD. Most comfort women received periodic VD check-ups conducted by a medical officer or a medic. These checks were made once a week or once every 10 days. Penicillin was not available in those days. The most common treatment for VD was an injection of salvarsan, or “No. 606” in Japanese medical corps’ terminology. Salvarsan is an extremely strong substance and some former comfort women who received the injections testified that they suffered from various severe side-effects.
Incidentally, during the Pacific War Shikauchi Nobutaka (trained to become a paymaster, learned how to establish and manage military brothels) was seconded from the Material Section in the Ordnance Bureau of the Ministry of War to the Kokusai Gomu Kogyo (International Rubber Industry) Corporation, in order to supervise the production of condoms for military use. The Army Accounts Department and the Supply Headquarters were responsible for sending condoms to forces stationed overseas, and officials ensured a ready supply. In 1942, for example, 32.1 million condoms were sent to units stationed outside Japan. There is no doubt that the Ministry of War was directly involved in transporting comfort women to war zones, since it was impossible to use any Japanese military ships without its permission.
Comfort women were constantly in danger of violence committed by their “client” soldiers and officers, in particular those who were drunk. Although drinking alcohol on the premises of comfort stations was prohibited, some men smuggled in liquor. Despite the military regulations banning intoxicated men from entering comfort stations, it was difficult for managers to refuse military personnel, especially officers. Intoxicated men often made various unbearable requests of the comfort women. They inflicted violence upon their “hostesses” when such requests were refused.
However, intoxicated men were not the only violent ones. Some men were equally violent when sober, as the following extract of Kim Hakusun’s testimony indicates:
Many comfort women were maltreated by their managers. Managers beat women as punishment if they failed to meet their daily quota of tickets, or contracted VD or became ill and were unable to serve the men for a long period. Condoms was not sufficient. There the same condom would be used a number of times. After each time, it would be washed and disinfected by a comfort woman. Maria Rosa L. Henson was born in Pasay City on 5 December 1927. She was an extramarital daughter of a bid landowner and his housemaid.
After three months, she was transferred to another comfort station which was a former rice mill. Rosa and a group of other young women were washing clothes when a Filipino collaborator of the Japanese suggested that they could earn money from washing clothes for the Japanese soldiers. They went with the collaborator to three Japanese soldiers who were waiting for them. They were taken to a two-storey houses and were held there for a year washing clothes during day time and being raped at night.
When the girls were informed about the real nature of the work, it was quite natural for them to refuse to work as comfort women. Some demanded that the comfort station manager send them back home as the job they had been promised was found to be false. Typically the manager would inform them that the large advance payment made to their parents had to be paid back before they would be sent back home. Even where no advance payment had been made, the manager would demand repayment of the cost of transporting them from their home to the locality of the comfort station, the cost of daily meals and clothes, plus interest on those costs. When they realized that they were trapped by this sort of “indentured system,” it was too late to reverse the situation.
The women were forced to follow the military time after time, and had no freedom whatsoever. When the Japanese military began retreating from one place to another in Southeast Asia, the women were either abandoned or destined to share their fate with defeated military. Some perished and others narrowly escaped to be protected by the United forces.